Sylvester James Jr. (September 6, 1947 - December 16, 1988), who uses the stage name Sylvester , is an American singer-songwriter. Primarily active in the genre of disco, rhythm and blues, and soul, he is known for his flamboyant and humble appearance, the sound of falsetto singing and hit single disco in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Born in Watts, Los Angeles, to an African-American middle-class family, Sylvester developed a love of singing through the gospel choir of the Pentecostal church. Leaving the church after the trial expressed disapproval of homosexuality, he found friendship among a group of black-clad women and transgender women who called themselves The Disquotays. Moving to San Francisco in 1970 at the age of 22, Sylvester embraced contra culture and joined the avant-garde drag group The Cockettes, producing a solo segment of their performances heavily influenced by female blues and jazz singers like Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker. During a tour criticized by Cockettes in New York City, Sylvester left them to pursue his career elsewhere. He came to the front of Sylvester and his Hot Band, a rock action that released two commercially unsuccessful albums on Blue Thumb Records in 1973 before disbanding.
Focusing on a solo career, Sylvester signed a recording contract with Harvey Fuqua from Fantasy Records and acquired three new supporters in the form of Martha Wash, Izora Rhodes - "Two Tons O 'Fun" - and Jeanie Tracy. His first solo album, Sylvester (1977), was a moderate success. This was followed by the famous disco album Step II (1978), which spawned singles "You Make Me Feel" and "Dance (Disco Heat)", both US and European hits. By distancing himself from the disco genre, he recorded four more albums - including a live album - with Fantasy Records. After leaving this label, he signed a contract with Megatone Records, a dance-oriented company founded by friend and collaborator Patrick Cowley, where he recorded four more albums, including Cowley who wrote the Hi-NRG song "Do Ya Wanna Funk." An activist campaigning against the spread of HIV/AIDS, Sylvester died of complications arising from the virus in 1988, leaving behind all future royalties from his work to the San Francisco-based HIV/AIDS charity.
During the late 1970s, Sylvester earned a moniker from "Queen of Disco" and during his life he gained special recognition in San Francisco, where he was awarded the key to the city. In 2005, he was posthumously appointed into the Dance Music Hall of Fame, while his life was recorded in biography and became the subject of documentary and musical.
Video Sylvester (singer)
Kehidupan awal
1947-1962: Masa kecil
Sylvester James was born on September 6, 1947 in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California, into a middle-class family. His mother, Letha Weaver, has been raised near Palestine, Arkansas into a relatively wealthy African-American family that owns their own farmland. Letha's mother, Gertha Weaver, was unmarried and too ill to take care of her child, so that Gertha's sister Julia, known to her family as JuJu, became Letha's foster mother. In the late 1930s, Julia and her husband took part in the Great African-American Migration from the Southern United States, moving to Watts.
This is where Letha was mostly raised and where she met and married her first husband, James Sylvester "Sweet", with the couple moving into a small cottage owned by Letha's parents. Their first child, named Sylvester after his father, was followed by the birth of John Wesley in 1948 and Larry in 1950. Sylvester and his brothers became better known in their African-American community by their nickname, with Sylvester being "Dooni." Sylvester considers his father a "lowly man" because he is an adulterer and leaves his wife and children when the children are young. Letha and his three sons moved to a downtown housing project in Aliso Village before moving back to his parents' house at 114th Street in Watts.
Letha is a devout follower of Pentecostal Christian denominations, regularly attending the Church of the Palm Lane in Christ in South Los Angeles. Sylvester and his brothers accompanied him to a church service, where he developed a special interest in gospel music. After becoming a diligent singer from the age of three, Sylvester regularly joins the gospel shows; she sings the song "My Buddy" at the funeral of one of the other children in Park Lane congregation. Young Sylvester is often accused of making mistakes and admitting his own homosexuality from an early age. At the age of eight, he engages in sexual activity with a much older man in the church - at that time reported to be a church organ - though he will always maintain that this is a consensus and not an example of sexual harassment. Sylvester was taken to the doctor after receiving an injury while having anal sex with this man; it was the physician who told Letha that his son was gay, something he could not accept, saw homosexual activity as an aberration and a sin. News of Sylvester's homosexual activity soon spread through the church congregation, and felt undesirable, he stopped attending at the age of 13.
During Sylvester's childhood, his mother gave birth to three more children by different fathers before marrying Robert "Sonny" Hurd in the early 1960s, with whom he adopted three foster children. A supervisor at the Rockwell aerospace producer of North America, Hurd's work increases family income and they can move to a more expensive environment, especially in North-European Europe from Watts. The relationship between Sylvester and his mother and stepfather was very tense; in the middle of an argument with his mother, Sylvester decided to leave their home permanently.
1962-1970: The Disquotays
Now homeless, Sylvester spent most of the next decade living with friends and relatives, in particular, his grandmother Julia, who declared no rejection of his homosexuality, having become friends of a number of gay men in the 1930s. Sometimes, he returns to his mother's house and stepfather for several days at a time, especially to spend time with his younger sister, Bernadette and Bernadine. Aged 15, he began frequenting local gay clubs and building a group of friends from the local black gay community, eventually forming themselves into a group they call Disquotays. Sylvester's best friend among the Disquotays was a trans woman named Duchess, who earned his money as a prostitute, a job that Sylvester refused to get involved with. The group held a luxury house party, sometimes (unlicensed) at their friend's house, rhythm and blues singer Etta James, where they wore women's clothing and wigs, kept trying to defeat each other in appearance.
Sylvester's girlfriend during the late 1960s was a young man named Lonnie Prince; well built and interesting, many of Sylvester's friends describe the couple as "It's couple". Sylvester often hitchhiked around town wearing women's clothing; such activities carry the risk of arrest and prosecution, because cross-over is illegal in California. While avoiding imprisonment for this crime, he was arrested for shoplifting on several occasions. He found jobs in a variety of different professions, including cooking at McDonald's - where he was fired for refusing to wear a hair net - the cashier in the airport parking garage, working in a hair salon, at a department store, and as -up artist in the morgue, preparing the corpse for their funeral. In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement reached its peak, but Sylvester and his friends did not take an active role in it. During the Watt riots between members of the black community and white-dominated police forces, they were joined by widespread riots and looting, stealing wigs, hairspray, and lipsticks.
Although he had little interest in formal education and rarely attended classes, Sylvester enrolled at Jordan High School. He graduated in 1969 at the age of 21; in her graduation photo, she appeared in a drag style wearing a blue chiffon prom dress and honeycomb hairstyle. By the end of the decade, Disquotays began to drift away, with some of them leaving cross-dressing and others admitting they were trans females and undergoing sex change surgeries. Sylvester always considers himself a man and begins to tidy up the feminine nature of his outfit, aiming for a more androgynous look that combines male and female styles and that is influenced by the mode of hippie movement.
1970-1972: The Cockettes
In Los Angeles' Whiskey a Go Go bar, Sylvester meets Reggie Dunnigan, who invites her to move to the city of San Francisco in Northern California to join the "Chocolate Cockettes" - a black member of an avant-garde drag show art known as The Cockettes. Founded by Hibiscus drag queen in 1970, Cockettes parodied popular culture, engaged in the Gay Liberation movement, and influenced by the ethos of the hippie movement, communal living, embracing free love, and consuming substances that change minds such as marijuana and LSD.. With Disquotays disbanded, Sylvester has grown tired of Los Angeles, and is attracted by San Francisco's reputation as a gay and counter-cultural paradise. Arriving in town, he stayed at the communist house of Cockettes for several days. They were impressed by the sound of falsetto singing and his ability to play the piano, asking him to perform at the upcoming event, Radio Rodeo . Sylvester agreed, and one of her first appearances was singing The Mickey Mouse Club's theme song while wearing a cowgirl skirt. Moving to communist Cockettes' residence, he soon found the flats too crowded and had difficulty with lack of privacy; after a year he moved into a new house on Market Street with two fellow Cockettes.
Despite significant members of the entourage, Sylvester remains a relatively isolated figure; not only was he one of the few African-American members, he avoided more surrealist group activities for what he saw as a classy, ​​more glamorous show on stage. In the Cockettes show, he is usually given the whole scene for himself, often with little relevance to the narration and theme of the rest of the show, though through doing so, he gains his own followers. With a piano player named Peter Mintum, Sylvester works on a solo scene in which he shows his interest in blues and jazz by imitating some of his musical idols like Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker. Adding pictures, Sylvester uses the pseudonym "Ruby Blue" and describes himself as "Billie Holiday's cousin after being removed." Fascinated by the black music heritage, he read about the subject and became a collector of "negrobilia"; in some of his Cockette performances, he plays with the racial stereotypes of African-Americans to laugh at the stereotypes themselves.
In 1970, Sylvester made an open relationship with Michael Lyons, a European-American youth, and immediately proposed to him. Although same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in the US, the couple held a wedding at Shakespeare Park's Golden Gate Park. At the invitation of the Palace Theater manager, Sylvester appeared in a spoof movie, Tricia's Wedding, parodying the marriage of Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter of President Richard Nixon. In the movie, Sylvester plays the role of Coretta Scott King and African Ambassador Uma King. In 1971, Sylvester was given a one-man show, Sylvester Sings , at the Palace Theater, accompanied by Peter Mintun. He remained a part of the Cockette group during their divisive split, in which Hibiscus and his followers went to form the Angel of Light. After the departure of Hibiscus, Cockettes began to gain increasing media attention, with celebrities such as Rex Reed, Truman Capote, and Gloria Vanderbilt enthusiastic about their performances. Rolling Stone magazine chose Sylvester's show for a certain compliment, describing it as "a beautiful black androgyne who has the gospel voice with the heat and luster of Aretha [Franklin]".
The success of leading the group to bring their show to New York City, a city with a long history of drag culture. Arriving in November 1971, they immersed themselves in the avant-garde city, attending a party hosted by Andy Warhol and Screw magazine. Spending so much of their time partying, most of the Cockettes did not practice, except for Sylvester, who wanted to perfect his action. Although Cockettes' performance at the Anderson Theater was panned by critics, Sylvester's actions were widely praised as the highlight of the show. Realizing that he had a much better prospect as a solo artist, at the second show in New York he opened his acting by telling the audience, "I apologize for this parody I linked to", while on the seventh day he announced that he would be leaving Cockettes altogether.
Maps Sylvester (singer)
A thriving solo career
In early 1973, Sylvester and The Hot Band were signed by Bob Krasnow to Blue Thumb. On this label, they produced their first album, where they changed their voices from blues to more commercial rock, while the Pointer Sisters were hired as supporting singers. Sylvester named this first album Scratch My Flower because the sculpture stickers and gardenia-shaped streaks stuck to the cover, even though it was released under the title of Sylvester and Hot Band . The album consists mainly of cover songs by artists such as James Taylor, Ray Charles, Neil Young, and Leiber and Stoller. Described by one of Sylvester's biographers as lacking in "fire and focus of live performances", it sold poorly on release.
Sylvester and his Hot Band toured the United States, receiving threats of violence in several southern states, where widespread conservative and racist attitudes led to antagonism between the band and the local population. In late 1973, the band recorded their second album, Bazaar , which included cover songs and original compositions by Kerry Hatch bassist. Hatch later commented that Hot Band found the album more satisfying than its predecessor, but nevertheless it was again sold poorly. Music journalist Peter Shapiro believes that on this Blue Thumb album, "cottony falsetto" Sylvester is an uncomfortable match with the guitar "and that they both have" unpleasant astringent qualities. "Finding Sylvester hard to work, and frustrated by the lack of commercial success , The Hot Band left Sylvester at the end of 1974, after which Krasnow canceled his record contract.At the same time, Sylvester's relationship with Lyons ended, with Lyons himself moving to Hawaii. 1973-1977: _Two_Tons_O'_Fun_and_Sylvester "> 1974-1977: Two Ton O 'Fun and Sylvester
Now without a Hot Band or recording contract, Sylvester set himself up with the new band, The Four As, and a new set of backing singers, two black drag queens named Jerry Kirby and Lady Bianca. With this new entourage, he continued to perform at a number of local venues including Jewel's Catch One, a black-dominated gay club on West Pico Avenue in Los Angeles, but reviewers were not impressed by the new lineup, which Sylvester left most in December 1974. living briefly in England, Sylvester returns to San Francisco and gathers three young queens to become supporting singers: Arnold Elzie, Leroy Davis, and Gerry Kirby. Nevertheless, although he performed at events such as the Castro Street Fair of 1975, success continued to dodge him, and he eventually fired Elzie, Davis, and Kirby.
Hiring Brent Thomson as his new manager, he suggested that Sylvester get rid of him androgyny and wear more masculine clothes to get a recording contract; as he says, "no one gives a recording contract to drag queens." Thomson opened auditions for new supporters, with Sylvester lured by one of the auditions, Martha Wash. Sylvester asks if he has a big black friend who can sing, after which he introduces him to Izora Rhodes. Although he calls them only as "girls," Wash and Rhodes call themselves Two Tons O 'Fun (and long afterward, as they reach mainstream success, as The Weather Girls), and continue to work with Sylvester intermittently until his death , develop a close friendship with him. They soon joined bassist John Dunstan and keyboard player Dan Reich.
Playing gay bars like The Stud and The Endup, in September 1976 Sylvester and his band got a regular weekend job at The Palms nightclub on Polk Street, doing two or three sets of nights; most of which are covers, but some are original compositions by Sylvester and his guitarist Tip Wirrick. Through this event Sylvester came to the attention of Motown producer Harvey Fuqua, and Fuqua then signed Sylvester to a solo deal with Fantasy Records in 1977.
In the middle of that year, he recorded his third album, self-titled Sylvester, which featured a cover design depicting Sylvester in men's suits. The songs included in the album are influenced by dance music, and include Sylvester's own compositions, such as "Never Too Late," as well as cover of hits like Ashford & amp; Simpson's "Over and Over." Many reviewers noted that Sylvester's drawings have been altered since the beginning of his career, keeping him away from sparkling and twisty appearances with more conventional rhythm-and-blues performers that will have wider commercial appeal. Released as a single, Sylvester's "Over and Over" proved a small hit in the US, but more successful in Mexico and Europe. Built on the album's release, Sylvester toured Louisiana and then Mexico City.
1978: Step II and disco success
Sylvester's fame increased after the release of his solo album, and he was hired to perform regularly in the gay bar of The Elephant Walk in Castro, a San Francisco area known as gay village. He became a friend of Harvey Milk - known locally as "Mayor of Castro Street" - who was the first gay man to be publicly elected to a public office in California, and performed at Milk's birthday party that year. In the spring of 1978, Sylvester successfully auditioned for a cameo appearance in The Rose film starring the gay icon Bette Midler. In the film, he plays one of the singing queens singing alongside Bobpener's "Fire Down Below," in a scene that was filmed in a wrecked bar in downtown Los Angeles.
Sylvester released his second solo album, Step II , in September 1978. For this release, he was primarily influenced by the dance music genre known as the disco which became increasingly popular throughout the Western world. Disco is closely related to the gay, black, and Latino communities in the US and is dominated by black female artists like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, and Grace Jones, with Sylvester initially not convinced that it is a genre suitable for her work; he continues to recognize his growing commercial potential. During the production of the album, Sylvester invited musician Patrick Cowley to join his studio band, impressed by Cowley's innovative technique using synthesizers. The album gave Cowley a job as a supporting musician on Sylvester's tour around the world, and both started close friendships and collaborations. Once again produced jointly by Harvey Fuqua and released on the Fantasy Fuqua label, Step II contains two disco songs which are then released as singles, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," written by James Wirrick, and "Dance (Disco Heat)," written by Eric Robinson.
Both singles proved commercial hits both domestically and abroad, topping the American dance ladder and into the US pop charts. The album itself was also a success, becoming certified gold, and depicted by Rolling Stone magazine as well as a disco. In his disco history, Shapiro described "You Make Me Feel (Real Mighty)" as Sylvester's "biggest record", "gay disco foundation," and "an epochal note in the history of the disco." Shapiro notes that Sylvester's work unites elements of the two main threads of the disco; "the Gospel/R & B tradition" and the "mechanical, piston-pumping beats" tradition, but that in doing so, it goes "far beyond". Shapiro expressed the view that "Sylvester pushed his falsetto far above his natural range to the ether and the engine rhythm that drove toward the escape velocity, creating a new powerful sonic lexicon, camp, and other worlds enough to articulate the wonderful happiness of disco disco dance floor. ".
In August and December 1978, Sylvester visited London, England to promote his music; he proved very popular in the city, performing in a number of different nightclubs and crowded by fans. While in the city he filmed a music video for "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Back in the US, Sylvester began appearing on television shows to advertise his music, appearing on Dinah Shore , American Bandstand , Rock Concert , and The Merv Griffin Show . He also undertook a series of tours across the country, opening for both The Commodores and Chaka Khan, and performing with The O'Jays, War, and L.T.D. As a result, he earned numerous awards and performed at several awards ceremonies. Through his growing public existence, Sylvester, along with other odd-looking performers like The Village People, helps to strengthen the relationship between discos and homosexuality in the public imagination; However this enhances anti-disco sentiment among rock fans who will emerge as a Disco Sucks movement.
Next life
1979-1981: Star , Sell My Soul , and Too Hot For Sleep
Sylvester follows the success of Step II with an album titled Star . Consisting of four love songs, the title song - released as a single in January 1979 - has been written by Cowley, and Sylvester will continue to tell the press that it is the first disco album, but it will probably also be the last.. He premiered a four-song album on March 11, 1979, at a sold-out show at the Opera House of the San Francisco War Memorial. The show was attended by a number of senior figures in the local government, and half, Mayor Dianne Feinstein sent his aide, Harry Britt, to give Sylvester the key to the city and announced March 11 as "Sylvester Day." The Opera House show was recorded, and then released as a live album, Living Proof . Sylvester thought about the album, but the album did not sell. The one released from this album, "Can not Stop Dancing", was a hit at the disco club but not on the pop music charts.
Despite increasing mainstream success, Sylvester continues to reaffirm his relationship with the gay community of San Francisco, appearing on the main stage at the 1979 Gay Freedom Gay parade. Furthermore, during his summer tour of 1979 in England, he performed at the London Gay Pride Festival in Hyde Park. That same year, Sylvester met with singer Jeanie Tracy through Harvey Fuqua, and they soon became friends. A big black woman, Sylvester feels that Tracy will work well with Two Tons O 'Fun, and invites her to join her supporters' singer, which she later did. Next, making friends with Tons, he will work for Sylvester for the rest of his life. The Ton himself was convinced by Fuqua to produce their own self-titled album, from which came two dance hits, "Earth Can Be Just Like Heaven" and "Just Us"; as a result, they started working less and less with Sylvester, just joining him on the occasion for his live performances. In some interviews he will express bitterness at their departure, while in others he emphasizes that he has no bad feelings towards them.
In 1980, Sylvester also reached tabloid headlines after he was arrested on a visit to New York City, allegedly involved in the robbery of some rare coins. After three days of detention, he was released on a police bail of $ 30,000. Sylvester was never charged, and the police later admitted their mistake after it was revealed that the perpetrator had actually acted as Sylvester by signing a check on his behalf. Back to San Francisco after this event, this is where Sylvester produced his next album for Fantasy Records, Selling My Soul . Most avoided discos after the genre became unpopular after the publicized Disco Sucks movement, Sell My Soul instead represents a selection of soul-inspired dance tracks. Recorded in two weeks, Sylvester works primarily by supporting unknown singers and musicians, and regular collaborators Rhodes and Cowley simply do not exist. Reviews are generally bad, describing the album as average in quality. The only disco song on the album, "I Need You", was released as a single, but bad luck.
Sylvester's fifth and final album for the Fantasy Record is Too Hot to Sleep , where he once again distance himself from the disco for a series of soul songs, ballads, and gospel-style songs. Missing Two Ton completely, Tracy was accompanied by a new supporter, Maurice "Mo" Long, and as the three of them had grown up in God's Church in Christ, they decided to call themselves "COGIC" Singers. "The album also featured a number of songs in which Sylvester avoided the falsetto tone he used to sing in baritone sounds. The album sold poorly.
1982-1986: Megatone Records
Both Two Tons and Sylvester came to suspect that Fantasy Records had failed to pay them all the money they earned from the sale of their records. Sylvester left Fantasy and in November 1982 he filed a lawsuit against them; finally proved successful in establishing that the company had withheld money from him for $ 218,112.50. Nevertheless, Fuqua proved unable to pay anything over $ 20,000, which meant that Sylvester never saw most of the money that was legally owed to him. Sylvester grew to hate Fuqua, and forbade his friends to never mention his name.
Closely linked to the now unpopular disco and not having hit singles in the previous few years, having left Fantasy Sylvester was not a draw for the major record labels. Recognizing this situation, in 1982 Sylvester commented that "nothing is worse than a falling star" who still has the "illusion" of their continued fame. Rather than pursuing the success of the main chart, Sylvester wants to focus on maintaining creative control over his music. Hiring former tour manager and old friend Tim McKenna as her new manager, Sylvester decided to produce her next album with Megatone Records, a small San Francisco company founded in 1981 by Patrick Cowley and Marty Blecman and who mostly caters to gay club scenes. The result is All I Need (1982), where James Wirrick has written most of the songs, which are oriented to dance and influenced by new wave music later in fashion. Sylvester insisted that he incorporated several ballads on the album, featuring cover art by Mark America that portrays Sylvester in ancient Egyptian clothing.
One of Sylvester's most famous songs in this period was "Do Ya Wanna Funk", a Hi-NRG dance song co-written with Cowley, released as a single in July 1982, topping American dance charts and entering pop charts in a number of countries around the world. Although he continues to work, Cowley suffers from the recently discovered HIV/AIDS virus - at the time still referred to as "gay-related immune deficiency" (GRID) by American doctors - and is in a deteriorating physical condition. Sylvester goes on tour, and while in London, prepares to perform at the superclub of Heaven, that he knows of Cowley's death on November 12, 1982. He goes on stage, informs the crowd of passing Cowley and then sings "Do Ya Wanna Funk" to commemorate it.
In 1983, Sylvester became a partner of Megatone Records. That year he also released his second album with the company, Call Me , but it was not a commercial success. Four songs from the album were released as singles, although only "Trouble in Paradise" entered the top 20 of the US charts; Sylvester later recounted that his song was "A AIDS Message to San Francisco." Sylvester is emotionally moved by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and starts helping at the Rita Rockett Lounge for ill patients at San Francisco General Hospital and performs at various charity concerts to raise money and awareness to combat the spread of the disease. In February 1984, he also performed a "One Night Only" retrospective of his work at the prestigious Castro Theater. Sylvester still toured domestically and in Europe, although he found that demand for his performance declined, and that he now played to smaller venues and sang to pre-recorded footage rather than to live bands as he did at the end of the year 1970s..
The next album, titled M-1015 (1984), is more frenetic and pumping than previous releases, after embracing the recently developed Hi-NRG genre, but also incorporating electro and rap elements. The main characters behind the album were Kessie and Morey Goldstein, and Sylvester himself did not write a single song. The album also contains sexually explicit lyrics, especially in the songs "How Do You Like Your Love" and "Sex". That year, he also established a relationship with an architect named Rick Cramner, and together they moved into a new apartment in the hills, where Sylvester decorates his dressing room with posters and divine memorabilia, transvestites, actors and singers whom he has briefly known when they were at The Cockettes. In 1985, he fulfilled his lifelong ambition by working with singer Aretha Franklin; she and Jeanie are invited to give a background vocal on Franklin's album Who's Zoomin 'Who? .
Sylvester's last album, Mutual Attraction (1986), was produced by Megatone but licensed and released by Warner Bros. On the album, Sylvester has worked with many collaborators, and includes new songs alongside covers from songs by Stevie Wonder and George Gershwin. The reviews of this album are mixed, with many claiming that it is a bad release. One single album, "Someone Like You", proved more successful, reaching number one on the Billboard charts. Warner Bros. ordered him to appear on the New Year's Eve issue of The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, where Joan Rivers described him as a waria; looking annoyed, he corrects him by stating that he is not a transvestite, stating only "I'm Sylvester!" 1983-1988: _Final_years_and_death "> 1986-1988: Recent years and death >
In 1985, Sylvester's boyfriend, Rick Cranmer, became aware that he had been infected with HIV; without known medical drugs, his health deteriorated rapidly and he died in September 1987. Sylvester was devastated, and although aware that he may also be infected, he refused to undergo his blood test, only paying attention to the first symptoms of the virus as he developed a persistent cough. Beginning work on an album that will remain unfinished, he moved to a new apartment on Collingwood Street in Castro, and tried his best to continue performing in the Bay Area, though he became too ill to take a full tour. Finally diagnosed with AIDS, he was hospitalized for sinus surgery in late 1987, and after returning to his apartment he began being treated by his mother and Tracy, before being hospitalized again in May 1988, this time with pneumocystis pneumonia. Returning to his flat, he gave away many treasures and wrote his will.
After losing a lot of weight and being unable to walk easily, he attended the 1988 Castro Gay Freedom March in a wheelchair, propelled by Mckenna in front of People with AIDS banners; along Market Street, the gathering crowd shouted his name as he passed. The next Castro Street Fair 1988 was named "A Tribute to Sylvester," and although he was too ill to be attended, many people shouted his name in such a way that he could hear them from his bedroom. He continued to give media interviews, was open about the fact that he was dying of AIDS, and sought specifically to highlight the impact of illness suffered by the African-American community. In an interview with NME, he stated, "I do not believe that AIDS is God's wrath, people have a tendency to blame everything on God."
For Thanksgiving 1988, his family spent the holidays with him, even though he has developed neuropathy and is increasingly bedridden and dependent on morphine; he died in his bed on December 16, 1988 at the age of 41. Sylvester had planned his own funeral, insisting that he would wear a red kimono and be placed in an open coffin for the mourners to see, with his friend Yvette Flunder making up his corpse's face. She wanted Tracy to sing at her funeral, accompanied by a choir and lots of flowers. The whole thing happened at his church, the Love Center, with a sermon provided by Reverend Walter Hawkins. The show was packed, with only a stand, and the coffin was later taken and buried in his family's plot at Inglewood Park Cemetery. An album titled Immortal was released posthumously; it contained Sylvester's last studio recording, and was compiled by Marty Blecman.
Personal life
Sylvester is described as having a "flamboyant and colorful" personality, wearing men and women gender clothing as part of his outfit, with his biographer Joshua Gamson arguing that for Sylvester, "gender is a daily choice". Sylvester describes his public persona as "an extension of me, my true one". Sylvester's friend and publicist Sharon Davis described him as "a quiet, often thoughtful, caring person who puts others before him, and is generous with mistakes, lacking in money, whose policy is that you live only once, so enjoy!" He also notes that he can be "unpredictable", being "stubborn like a donkey" and "always talking in his mind". Sylvester is regarded as excellent by Hot Band members and can be temperamental and difficult with the people he works with. He found it difficult to keep the money he earned, and to spend it once he got it, both for himself and his lover, friends, and family.
Sylvester is openly gay, with Gamson noting that he tends to enter into relationships with men who are "white, self-doubtful and effeminate." In 1978, he established a relationship with a young white model named John Maley; Sylvester then devoted the song "Can not Forget the Love" from her album Too Hot to Sleep to her young lover. Maley ended the relationship to move to Los Angeles, then recalled that Sylvester "is a nice guy, and I owe him a lot." In 1981, Sylvester had a relationship with a slim brunette from Deep River, Connecticut named Michael Rayner, but unlike his predecessor, he did not move to Sylvester's house; their partnership ended when Rayner admitted that he was not completely in love with Sylvester. Sylvester's next relationship was with Tom Daniels, a hairdresser he met in 1982, but their romance ended after six months when Daniels discovered that Sylvester had sex with another man while on tour. The last partner of the singer, architect Rick Cranmer, is two feet two blond feet, and the duo moved into a shared house in the hills. Cranmer died of AIDS-related complications in 1987, the year before Sylvester succumbed to the virus.
As a gay man openly throughout his career, Sylvester began to appear as a spokesman for the gay community. He told a journalist that "I realize that gay people have put me on a pedestal and I love it.However, of all the oppressed minorities, they just have to be the most oppressed They have all the trouble finding something or someone to identify with - and they chose me I like being around gay people and they have proven to be some of my closest friends and the most loyal audience. "Elsewhere, he keeps saying that he feels his career has" gone beyond the gay movement. has nothing to do with my music.When I make love I do not think about singing and vice versa. " He publicly criticized what he regarded as a divisive tendency within the gay community itself, noting that "I get conformist conformism from queens all the time They always want to read me They always want me to do it their way I will not fit with a gay lifestyle when they see it and that's for sure ". He is very critical of "clones" - gay men dressed in boots, boot-cut jeans, checked shirts and handlebar mustaches - stating that too often they judge flamboyant or extravagant gays.
Davis characterized Sylvester as "absolute perfectionist". She is very conscious of her physical appearance, and when she earns enough money from her successful Step I album, she spends some of it on cosmetic surgery to remove the lump in her nose, inject silicone into her cheeks, and perform cosmetic treatments in his teeth. He will also insist that all of his pictures are sprayed thoroughly.
Sylvester was born and raised into the Pentecostal denomination of Christianity, and remains a Christian throughout his life. He often compares the feelings of joy that accompany his performance on stage with the feelings experienced in the gospel choir at the Pentecostal church. When the show reaches a certain level of increased emotion, she will comment that "we have a service." Later, he joined the Central Church of Love in East Oakland, a ministry founded by pastor and former Gospel singer Walter Hawkins in the 1970s. He had been introduced to the church by Jean Tracie in the 1980s and would soon become an ordinary church congregation, enjoying a friendly attitude towards the outcasts of society. Sylvester requested that his funeral be done by the ministry at Love Center.
Legacy
During the late 1970s, Sylvester acquired the moniker of "Queen of Disco", a term that continues to be given to the singer into the 21st century. British journalist Stephen Brogan later described it as "the brightest star, he only happens once, he is a radical and visionary in terms of peculiarities, music and race." Reynaldo Anderson of Harris-Stowe State University describes Sylvester's influence on the disco and the ensuing electronic dance music as "untold". He added that Sylvester's songs "Dance (Disco Heat)", "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", and "Do You Wanna Funk" represented the "national anthem of fans of the disco for a generation", while also expressing the view that Sylvester himself "personified excesses from the 1970s and marked [decade] experiments that changed social norms" in the United States.
Shapiro cites Sylvester alongside other artists such as Wendy Carlos, Throbbing Gristle, and Terre Thaemlitz as individuals who use electronic music as "vehicles to express sexual abuse", while in his study of the use of falsetto in the disco, Anne-Lise Franç§ ois believes that the singing style Sylvester "makes the clearest point about falsetto as a tool for gender-flexing." The cultural studies expert Tim Lawrence states that Sylvester embodies "gay root [disco] gestures", and in doing so can be contrasted with John Travolta, who embodies "commercialization and suburbanization"; both figures reflect the difference between straight and gay interpretation and disco music presentation. Layli Philips and Marla R. Stewart compared Sylvester with Willi Ninja and RuPaul as pop icons showing "male femininity" in "Black male diva (or 'queen') tradition".
In his will, Sylvester has announced that royalties from the future sale of this music are devoted to two charities HIV/AIDS, Project Open Hand and AIDS Emergency Fund. Although Sylvester died in debt as a result of taking down royalty payments, in the early 1990s this debt had paid off, and the balance began to accumulate. Roger Gross, Sylvester's manager's lawyer and openly gay lawyer who helped him draw up his will, petitioned the court of justice to appoint the charity as the beneficiary of Sylvester's will. The proceeds of $ 140,000 of accrued royalties are shared between the two groups, and they will continue to be paid royalties in the future.
On September 19, 2005, Sylvester was one of three artists who were inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame, alongside Chic and Gloria Gaynor. In December 2016, Billboard magazine placed her as the 59th most successful dance artist of all time.
Biography, documentary and musicals
Sylvester's biography was written by Gamson and published in 2005. Writing for London-based LGBT magazine Beige: The Cultural Quarterly Culturally, Stephen Brogan expressed his opinion that while Gamson's biography has been well-studied, the structure is fragmented and therefore "unpleasant for read". Entertainment Weekly called the book "playful and angry" and gave it a rating of B, The Boston Globe suggested that it was "just as exciting as the passionate time of excitement," and < The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the author "carefully painted a social tapestry shift into the life story of his subject without ever removing Sylvester from the foreground". The Fabulous Sylvester won the 2006 Stonewall Book Award for nonfiction. In 2015, Sylvester's publicist Sharon Davis publishes a memoir about the time he spends with Sylvester, noting that he plans to emerge in 2013 to mark the 25th anniversary of Sylvester's death.
In 2010, the TV series Unsung aired an episode on Sylvester, which was then made available via YouTube. Sylvester: Mighty Real , an official long documentary about Sylvester's life and career, enters production; it features interviews with family members Sylvester and other artists and musicians who have been inspired by, but by 2012 the progress of the film has stalled.
In August 2014, Off-Broadway music entitled Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical opens at Theater At St. Clement's in New York City; it was directed together by Kendrell Bowman and Anthony Wayne, the latter of whom also featured as titular characters. Wayne stated that he found Sylvester's story through a television documentary, and was later "inspired by his desire to be who he was regardless of what he was going through", performing Sylvester's concert songs with friends Anastacia McCleskey and Jacqueline B. Arnold as Two Ton o 'Pleasure before deciding to start working on musicals. A review of musicals from The New York Times noted that Wayne "must have had the courage, the androgynous sexual attraction and the piercing sound to imitate the original with convincing." The Huffington Post noted that musicals were largely avoided in terms of the decline of Sylvester's musical success during the 1980s, and that although "anyone looking for a long-running play-by-play game from star life would be more good. off waiting for the documentary "musical" to succeed as a collection of contagious performances by truly talented players. "
Discography
Studio album
Live album
Compilation album
- Mighty Real (1979, Fantasy) UK # 62
- Sylvester's Greatest Hits: Nonstop Dance Party (1983, Fantasy)
- 12 With 12 (1985, Megatone)
- Eternal (1989, Megatone)
Singles
Audio sample
See also
- List of number one hit hits (United States)
- List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart
References
Bibliography
External links
- Official website at Wayback Machine
- Sylvester enters the Queer Cultural Center
- Sylvester James on IMDb
- Articles on SoulMusic.com
- Sylvester on DiscoMusic.com
- Sylvester at Allmusic
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments